Highly vesicular pumice generated by buoyant detachment of magma in subaqueous volcanism

Many submarine caldera volcanoes are blanketed with deposits of highly vesicular pumice, typically attributed to vigorous explosive activity(1-4). However, it is challenging to relate volcanic products to specific eruptive styles in submarine volcanism(5,6). Here we document vesicularity and textural characteristics of pumice clasts dredged from the submarine Macauley volcano in the Kermadec arc, southwest Pacific Ocean. We find that clasts show a bimodal distribution, with corresponding differences in vesicle abundances and shapes. Specifically, we find a sharp mode at 91% vesicularity and a broad mode at 65-80%. Subordinate clasts show gradients in vesicularity. We attribute the bimodality to a previously undocumented eruptive style that is neither effusive nor explosive. The eruption rate is insufficient to cause magma to fragment explosively, yet too high to passively feed a lava dome. Instead, the magma foam buoyantly detaches at the vent and rises as discrete magma parcels, or blebs, while continuing to vesiculate internally. The blebs are widely distributed by ocean currents before they disintegrate or become waterlogged. This disintegration creates individual clasts from interior and rim fragments, yielding the bimodal vesicularity characteristics. We conclude that the generation and widespread dispersal of highly vesicular pumice in the marine environment does not require highly explosive activity.